It’s no secret that the future of work is evolving faster than ever before, but HR experts at UNLEASH America 2025 told an audience of their peers that it’s happening right now in front of them and they need to be ready to evolve at the same time.

In a keynote panel, HR leaders from SAP, Microsoft and New York University (NYU) joined host David Green, Managing Partner at Insight222, to explore how this is impacting on skills, workforce planning and leadership.

When considering how tech giant Microsoft is identifying and transitioning to future roles, skills and operations, Global General Manager, Future of Work, Workforce of the Future and Employee Experiences, Karen Kocher highlighted three key elements.

“One is the work itself. We at Microsoft, and all of us in the audience, need to focus on foresight. What is foresight is anticipating? Where is it all going?” She explained.

Secondly, there is a focus on “work to skill” rather than “learning to skill” – for AI skills, this means using AI tools for 11 minutes in day-to-day activities every day, which Kocher stated is “a bit of disruption of the way we typically tend to provide learning skill, but it works.”

Kocher’s third factor was a mixed team of humans and AI agents, working in an agile, dynamic way, referencing findings in Microsoft’s Work Trend Index 2025 which found “team members really want to work with agents”.

HR needs to rethink learning to prepare for the future

Looking at the future of work through the lens of learning, Anna Tavis, Clinical Professor, Human Capital Management at NYU, said that in the current, fast-moving environment what is required is “empathy for the human way of learning”.

“I think we need to rethink, fundamentally, how people learn and this is a big, big agenda,” Tavis told delegates.

She added that there were three key considerations to this: The democratization of data, the personalization of learning, and scalability of tools that support learning.

Picking up on what HR in organizations of the future must look like to support these transitions, SAP SVP and Global Head of People & Culture Services, Dr Christian Schmeichel, said “the very nature of work, as we speak, is changing right before our eyes”.

“Look five or ten years down the road – what does your future workforce look like? How many kinds of skills, how many workers are really needed? How much AI do you have, with how many robots?” He explained.

Then you start to understand what you need to do in the future of your people practices, how you incentivize this new growth force, how you improve, what is good work for, how you train.”

Data is the ‘difference maker’ for the future of work and skills

One of the key themes of the discussion across the panelists was the critical role of data in preparing for and succeeding in the future of work.

Schmeichel detailed that data-driven organizations and HR departments – those that are about the find, analyze and visualize data and use it as a storytelling device – will be in a strong position and have greater credibility when responding to the needs of the business.

“Data, more than ever, is probably the big difference maker,” added Kocher, who also pointed out that without data, organizations don’t have AI.

She went on to highlight how the evolving approach to skills has changed: whereas previously there was a need for data skills to help inform strategy, for example, that skill has now transformed into using AI to work on data instead.

We are asking people to recognize you need the output that the skills will give you, and then recognize you need an agent to help you with it, and therefore you’ve got this human led, but AI-operated situation, and it’s in many cases, the only way you can possibly keep up,” Kocher stated.

Tavis added that organizations are now also encouraging employees to learn skills based on their own needs and preferences, and that this where there’s “a ubiquity of data that is now personalized”.

Human qualities are essential to the future of work

Despite the advancements of technology and enthusiasm towards AI, panel moderator Green also highlighted that “it’s not just about technical skills – it’s about human skills as well”.

“It might be a bit of a paradox, but as we become more technical, as we get more technology, actually, human skills are becoming even more important,” Green said.

Schmeichel echoed this sentiment, warning that despite the movement to “go all in on tech” that organizations and HR should not “forget the human element” and that moving forward, HR business partners and advisors will “hopefully have a bit more time because they can really get support from AI to focus on this human interaction”.

Thinking of this impact of AI on the human side of work, Kocher added that AI should create more space for employees to engage in “more meaningful work”.

Concluding the session, the panel was asked to offer one piece of guidance to their HR peers to best influence the future of work:

• “Get a coach,”, recommended Tavis. “All of us can definitely benefit now that these coaches are accessible.”
• “Stay curious,” offered Schmeichel. “Not getting overwhelmed by anything that is happening, because this is a once in a generation opportunity.”
• “Remain practical,” said Kocher. “It really, really does boil down to looking at the work, looking at the skills, and deciding what is the best way to get involved.”